Comparison of new Netgear WNDR3800 and WNDR4500 - Page 3

Another point worth considering that I don't think anyone has mentioned is the WAN to LAN throughput speed.

Was looking at the smallnetbuilder site at their Router Charts table and they have these 2 Netgears as follows:

WAN to LAN throughput:
WNDR4500 at 767.7Mbps
WNDR3800 at 335.3Mbps

The 4500 has over double the thoughput speed of the 3800 and this is a significant difference.

You should ditch the 5100 for a 5300 or 6300 and you will see a huge difference. The 5100 does not really live up to the 300Mbps claim where as the 5300 or 6300 will. In fact they should go faster and be closer to 450Mbps.

PM sent to you, Bob.

Thank you very much for all your assistance. I hope the discussion with Netgear will be helpful for the engineers.

@Bob - You rock! Hopefully with StratmanX's assistance, the customer service issue can get worked out. Netgear hasn't always been bad on that front, but such treatmetn as StratmanX reported is truly unfortunate.

As noted, I also ran into a 2.4GHz performance issue after purchasing the WNDR4500 and immediately upgrading to the .58 firmware. Downgrading back to .50 resolved the issue. A subsequent re-upgrade to .58 resulted in a working/successful upgrade without further problems on the 2.4GHz band.

Bob, is there any update on an official 3800 for the UK? I'm seriously struggling with a crappy-pappy BT Home Hub since updating to faster BB.

Pm sent to you, Bob. A big thank you to you for all your help!

To everyone else... I have spoken with support on the telephone and a tech via email who suggested using Iperf to examine my network. There was very little discussion about telephone support issues I encountered as this was more a discussion about technical concerns.

Unfortunately, I must return my 4500 as the return for refund date has come. I will be keeping the 3800 because it works and it's too late to return it for refund. Interestingly, since I plugged my 4500 back in in anticipation of talking with tech support, the 4500 has performed better - I was finally able to connect on the 5 GHz band and sometimes obtain my full ISP download throughput on testing from my remote location in the house. Also interestingly, I have connected twice on the 5 GHz band with my 3800 - something I've never been able to do since I received it 6 weeks ago. No firmware changes have been made but there is a new network signal from a neighbor - in fact it is stronger than my own router's in my remote location. Maybe my neighbor's signal is the key to my new found signal strength.

I believe that a weak signal from another router is far worse than a strong one. So it could be that your neighbour has replaced an old router with a decent one, meaning any router in your home is now able to deal with (and avoid) it much better than before. Since my neighbours have updated to newer/better routers, I have noticed that we now very rarely get signal dropouts on WiFi.

It seems some neighbor's signals are no longer being received as consistently as before by my notebook's wireless adapter. Besides environmental or changes in other bandwidth signal's that I can't detect and identify (eg microwaves and cordless telephones) from neighbors, my thoughts are that this new wireless signal is creating an effect which I may benefit from. Another indicator is that the 3800's "Auto" channel is selecting non-overlapping channel 1, something it would not do previously.

Also of note, today I am back to the poor performance of the 4500 as compared to the 3800 for the 2.4 GHz bandwidth. The improvement I noticed this past week are gone today and the 3800 again performs better on the 2.4 GHz band.

Since I'm returning the 4500 I am not unhappy about this discrepancy. The 3800 is consistently a better performer for me with both my notebook and Roku 2 XS.

I don't get it, shouldn't the 4500 work better than the 3800 when it comes to signal strength? that's one of the main features of the 4500 after all.

You would think. For me, however, increased signal strength did not always correlate with improved throughput speeds. Sometimes it was the opposite with the 4500 with both my notebook's Intel 5300 NIC and a Roku 2 XS.

YMMV

what does YMMV stand for?

Your Mileage May Vary

i read that on google, but didn't think that's what StratmanX meant by it. Is signal strength something they can fix with firmware upates?

i've also read that the 4500 (and possibly the 3800) gets alot of dropped connections when used as wired. is this true?

Yes, I meant "Your Mileage May Vary". A number of other posters on various forums have found the 4500 to their liking. My situation may not represent the general population of 4500 users, and probably doesn't, because of the myriad of unique conditions that might interfere with signal in my testing areas of my home.

When the 4500 worked best it was better than the 3800, and it was fantastic, but that lasted about 5-7 days out of the month I tested 2 different units. The rest of the time the 3800 performed better, particularly on the 2.4 GHz band which is essential in my set up.

As to your question about firmware updates -- yes, a firmware update can potentially improve functioning of the router, and has been done at least once with the 4500 with Firmware Version 1.0.0.58.

Just because my experience with the 4500 was not what I expected compared to the 3800 does not mean the 4500 will not work for you. I am sure we do not have identical notebook network adapter cards, identical antenna, identical home constructions and furniture, or identical neighbor signal interference. Unless you know your client's wireless adapter cards/chips are less compatible with the 4500 then give it a try. My advice it to use a retailer who will allow you to return it for no fee just in case it doesn't work out for you.

In fact, whatever wireless router you get may not be to your satisfaction, so ensure you can return it for no restocking fee.

I don't have any wireless devices right now, although I could borrow a laptop and test it. but I won't be buying a router right now. I'm just trying to figure out what router I should get when I decide to get it.

I just bought a 3800 but wondering if I should get a 4500 instead. I have a very simple setup. All my computers, internet enabled TVs and Players are connecting to my Netgear WGT624n router via cable. I have two old laptops and Smartphones connecting wirelessly the to Internet. My wife streams movies on the Laptop from the web. Don't know much about the USB storage option?

Thank you.

Should I keep the 3800 or get the 4500

If you are happy with the performance of the 3800 then NO, keep the 3800. If you have clients, such as a notebook, that have three antenna and a NIC card that can send and receive using those three antenna - ie up to 450 Mbps throughput - then you might consider the 4500. BUT, if your clients max out at 300 Mbps or less throughputs, then there may be no reason to upgrade as long as you are able to use all your internet bandwidth and your media runs appropriately on your TV's.

Also, the USB ports of the 3800 may run a little faster with data transfers than the 4500 depending on harddrive formatting and other factors.

In other words, there are a number of variables for which you might want the 4500 over the 3800, including improved signal strength which may or may not result in improved data throughputs, especially in the 5 GHz band, or, having two USB ports instead of one. You won't know which is better for your needs unless you try them. However, if the 3800 works to your satisfaction currently, then there is no need to buy the 4500.

I haven't opened the 3800 so I still have time to consider. I think I will keep the 3800 as I don't currently have any devices which have the 3 antennas and most of the devices are wired to my current router and cable modem.

Thanks.

Broken link.

Post 1

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Now that I have fulfilled the stupid requirement of having 3 posts before I can post a URL,
try this:http://www.downloads.netgear.com/fil....0.25-Beta.img

The wireless drop issue with the WNDR3800 seems to persist and seem to get progressively worse with each firmware update V1.0.0.19-DNS, .23-RC3, .24, .25-WIFI2 & .25-Beta. I have sent in debug files and tried various combos that minimized the issue for others. I running the basic out of the box configuration with AES enabled. Pretty much the same as my previous Linksys WRT54G router. I did have to reset Linksys and my wireless printer once or twice a month to keep things going. That router does not have enough processing power for the growing wireless requirements in my household.That is why I bought the WNDR3800. Maybe I should have tried the WNDR4500 instead. The engineers have decided to RMA me another router, however, this was my very first Netgear purchase and I don't have much confidence left. I am just disappointed with the WNDR3800.

I am researching another router that can reliably support all of the devices below. I am also awaiting delivery of a Samsung UND8000 and expect that the number of wireless devices will continue to increase from here.

Wireless Devices-
2 laptops with VPN connections when working from home.
1 Win 7 laptop
1 Win 7 desktop
1 HP 8500 printer
2 iPod 4's
1 HTC android tablet
2 Android phones
1 Blackberry

Wired Devices -
1 Win XP desktop
1 Femto cell

Thanks in advance